1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to a technique for collecting and evaluating information about equipment distributed over a large area, e.g., over a large industrial plant or oil field; and more particularly relates to a technique for further processing such collected and evaluated information using a processor or processing module to determine the health/operability of the equipment.
2. Brief Description of Related Art
By way of example, FIG. 1 shows an oil field having industrial oil rigs/equipment distributed over a vast oil field landscape that each may include one or more condition monitoring devices to monitor parameters related to a respective industrial oil rig. Other known facilities may have equipment distributed in hazardous locations that each may include one or more such condition monitoring devices and do not have WIFI access throughout the facility. In these types of distributed industrial equipment arrangements, evaluation of equipment health data generally can be difficult, and in some cases may require a so-called ‘walk around’ to collect data and inspect the equipment. In such cases, collection can be time consuming, and require close proximity for low signal strength radio communications or a physical connection to a data collector associated with the equipment.
Data collection and evaluation technology are known in non-industrial applications for health monitoring—like the fitbit or internet networking, but such technology has not been applied to distributed industrial equipment arrangements.
One problem in the industry is that there is no known technique that allows for easily collecting and evaluating such equipment health data, e.g., in such distributed industrial equipment arrangements over vast locations with limited internet connectivity, e.g., like a large industrial plant or an oil field. In view of this, there is a need in the industry for such a collecting and evaluating technique.